It looks like a Trooper in Pennsylvania is going to get his day in court after all.
One judge refused to sign off on a warrant for drunk driving when the Trooper tried to charge the passenger. The drunk passenger admitted holding the steering wheel for the driver while the driver took a bite out of his sandwich. A different judge signed the warrant.
This is one of those news stories where I just don't feel like I'm getting the entire story . . .
4 comments:
What's he supposed to do--not hold the steering wheel? Just ride along with the car while the drunk guy drives with no hands on the wheel? I would think the necessity defense would apply here.
I think the article says the driver was sober. A little too hungry for the common good, but sober.
I'm curious as to why the Trooper was so determined to get the charge filed. I still think we don't know the whole story.
Okay, so even if the driver was sober, what is the drunk passenger supposed to do when the driver insists on taking his hands off the whell to eat a sandwich? I still say this is a clear case for the necessity defense because it would have been a greater harm to have the car just going along with no one controlling the steering than to have the drunk guy doing it.
I can't help but agree with you, though, that there must be something more to this or else why in hell would they want this prosecuted?
I could be wrong, I'm not a lawyer, but isn't this "corpus delecti"? The old witch-hunt thing again, a good solid common-law rule. There's no evidence that ANYONE drove drunk, other than the passenger's confession, and isn't a confession alone insufficient to support a trial?
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